


A Family of Birds and Bats

by aurythestarry



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bat Family, Death, Gen, Pain, just a lot of angst, lots of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 16:18:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6994798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurythestarry/pseuds/aurythestarry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Because we're a family of birds and bats, and we're strong. We always make it through, right? Every time.” </p><p><strong>con·nec·tion</strong><br/>kəˈnekSH(ə)n/<br/>noun<br/>1.<br/>a relationship in which a person, thing, or idea is linked or associated with something else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Family of Birds and Bats

**Author's Note:**

> this isn't a ship fic sorry to all you dickbabs shippers  
> my idea for this was that the people of the batfam have a special connection that allows them to feel each others deepest emotions. idk if it makes sense but i thought it was a cool idea so i went for it
> 
> this isn't the best but oh well i hope you enjoy it anyhow  
> sorry it's short oops

The first time it happened, it hadn't been so excruciating. 

Of course, Dick loved all his siblings with all his heart. They were his only family, and Jason and Damian weren't excluded from it.

But the first time, he hadn't been as broken. 

It had just been a normal night. Work, dinner, patrol, but after all those mundane normalities, he changed his routine and went out onto the roof and started stargazing. He couldn't sleep. That was such an obvious warning sign but he ignored it. There was something off inside him but he ignored it, like the idiot he was. 

Then, all of a sudden his stomach contracted within himself and he couldn't breathe. It was like something snapped and now pain was pouring out of every pore and orifice in his body. _Oh God, oh God_ , was all he could think. Something horrifying had happened. Something was really wrong. 

He learned from Bruce an hour later that Jason was dead. 

God, that poor kid. He knew what Bruce was like; he wanted Jason’s life with Bruce to be better than his was. He'd reached out; he'd tried to take care of the kid. He'd tried to help. And now he was dead. 

He didn't blame himself. Not at all. In fact, for the first time in months, he reached out to Bruce and attempted to go over, to talk to him. Bruce refused. 

Still, a part of Dick felt… empty. Jason was just a kid. He was just a goddamn kid. He had such a horrible life before Bruce found him, and then there were those years as Robin where he was happy. Where he was with a family. A strange family, albeit, but a family nonetheless. He didn't deserve to die at the hands of the Joker. 

However, the pain he felt that night when Jason died was nothing compared to the last time. 

\--

Barbara woke up screaming. She had the worst nightmare she’d ever had. She was left all alone, in a dark warehouse. She was so beat up, and losing a lot of blood. She was terrified. She saw a figure outside through a small window. It was Bruce. “Bruce!” she screamed, but it was too late. The bomb placed in the warehouse was counting down. 5, and Barbara was struggling against the bonds holding her in her chair. 4, and Bruce hadn’t moved. 3, she was yelling, crying, trying to free herself. 2, he turned away from the window. 1, Barbara sobbed as Bruce’s dark figure began to move away and out of sight. He was gone. He had left her.  
There was a burst of fiery light, and then she was dead. She died thinking her mentor, her role model had betrayed her. That he had let her die. 

Babs curled up into a ball and buried her head in her knees. She took deep breaths and tried to stop the tears streaming down her cheeks. She was alive. She was okay. After several minutes, Babs was able to calm down. But she couldn’t fall back asleep. She was too afraid of what would happen if she did. Instead, she lay awake, the moonlight from her window stretching shadows across her room. Babs wished she could be a little kid again; wished she could run into her father’s room and hide under his covers whenever a shadow moved across the floor. But she restrained herself and distracted her paranoid mind with her laptop. A sense of unease settled in her stomach. It felt like a large rock was taking up all the space in her abdomen, and it got bigger and heavier every minute. 

Dick had called her early the next morning, when the sun hadn’t even risen yet. His voice was laden with exhaustion and misery.

“Jason’s dead,” he said quietly. 

Horror impaled Babs through the stomach. “Jason’s… dead?” she stuttered, sinking to her knees and trembling. 

“Yes, Babs. He’s dead. The Joker blew him up, the bastard,” Dick said, anger and sadness weighing his voice down. “Bruce couldn’t save him, Babs.” 

Barbara held her stomach as she remembered her dream and tried not to retch. _Oh God, Jason. I’m sorry._

_I’m so sorry._

\--

The night Damian died, Dick was dying along with him. The pain was so agonizing he could barely stand it. He recognized the feeling from Jason's death, but this time it was magnified so grotesquely and with no caveat to its arrival. It was like he'd been stabbed and left to bleed out. It was searing through his body and he felt as if it would never end. 

God, the pain. He swore he was dying. He had never been more afraid in his life, that he was going to die. Who was going to look after Tim? Who was going to look after Jason? 

Who was going to look after Bruce? 

Someone who felt pain like that usually would wish that they would die to end it. But Dick wanted to stay alive so no one else would have to suffer from it. 

Like the true hero he was. 

Babs had called him just after it stopped. He didn't want to talk. He was barely staying upright, for God’s sakes. But in the few words she said to him through the phone, he could hear there was something different in her voice. Something similar to his own shaky speech. 

He didn't realize she had felt the same snap as he did on that night.

\-- 

Barbara had been out that night. She'd gotten a police alert about a fire downtown, and she'd ended up having a building fall apart on top of her. _That_ had hurt a lot.

But just as the first piece of debris hit her shoulder, there was a taut wire in her body that snapped right in half. Her lungs collapsed, not because of the chunks of rock and brick pushing her to the ground, but because of something else. Something inside of her pushing on her insides and emptying her out until she was hollow and cold. But somehow that force propelled her to stay alive as much as it was killing her. 

Her dad called her later that night, while she was patching herself up, and told her Robin had died. 

She felt nothing but sorrow for Dick and Bruce that night. She hadn't known Damian very well, but it hurt her heart. He was a part of her family, whether she liked it or not. And it hurt when he died. He was just a kid. He was just a kid. 

He was just like Jason. 

Damian didn't deserve to die at that age. He didn't deserve that kind of suffering. _Bruce_ didn't deserve that kind of suffering. 

Damian didn't deserve that kind of pain, but then again, neither did Jason.

Neither did Barbara. 

In the batfamily, even if you weren't looking for pain, it would find you. Always.

\-- 

Dick was perched atop a roof, watching the sunrise. His heart ached, and he ignored his constantly vibrating phone. He didn’t want to talk to Bruce now. He needed to be alone. 

He heard a swish and soft thud as someone landed behind him. He tucked his knees up to his chin. So much for solitude. “Hey, Babs,” he said. 

“Hey, Richard.” Babs sat down beside him and swung her legs gently over the edge of the building. Dick looked over at her face as the sun illuminated her face with orange and yellow tones, and he took her hand. 

“It’s going to be okay, Dick,” she said quietly. 

Dick sighed. “How do you know that, Babs? How would we ever know that?”

“Because we're a family of birds and bats, and we're strong. We always make it through, right? Every time.” Babs squeezed Dick’s hand gently. 

“Every time,” Dick repeated.

“Besides, maybe Damian will pull a Jason,” she said, grinning. 

Dick smiled, then gradually started laughing harder and harder. He wrapped an arm around Babs’ shoulders and pulled her close. 

“You’re right, Barbara. Maybe everything _will_ be okay.”


End file.
